WASHINGTON: South Korea's president on Wednesday proposed an international park on the tense border with North Korea as part of a peace initiative to bring down soaring tensions in the region.
"The Demilitarized Zone must live up to its name, a zone that strengthens the peace, not undermines it," President Park Geun-Hye told a joint meeting of the US House of Representatives and Senate.
"It is with this vision in mind that I hope to work toward an international park inside the DMZ. It will be a park that sends a message of peace to all of humanity," she said.
The proposal, while vague in detail, marks a shift in tone from the newly elected conservative leader who vowed a day earlier with President Barack Obama to take a hard line after months of soaring tensions with North Korea.
The most visible symbol of cooperation between North and South Korea -- the Kaesong industrial park inside the impoverished communist side -- has been suspended amid the democratic South's fears for its citizens' safety.
"I call on America and the global community to join us in seeking the promise of a new day," Park said.
Park described the proposal as part of her idea of "trustpolitik" -- stabilizing relations between the two Koreas -- that she laid out before election as a way to find a new path to the six-decade conflict.
But tensions have soared since December as North Korea launched a small satellite and carried out its third nuclear test. In remarks apocalyptic even by North Korea's standards, young leader Kim Jong-Un threatened nuclear war against the United States and South Korea.
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